Montserrat

 Yesterday morning, we walked back to the tour office to meet our group for our day trip to Montserrat. We were a group of 8 plus our guide/driver so we piled into a van instead of a bus. Montserrat is about an hour from Barcelona. We were able to arrive in the town before it got busy for the day which was nice. Enrique (our tour guide), brought us through town and explained some history. He brought us to the cathedral but not inside because a mass was going on. 

After being released to free time, we took a cable car to the top of the mountain so we could hike down. The cable car looked like it ascended at an unnatural angle from the town square but it was closer to 45 degrees in practice. The trail for the hike was paved most of the way and was more like one long windy ramp than a hiking trail. 

We stopped at a small church that was closed to eat lunch In the shade, then continued back to town. By the time we got back the town was busy. We got a snack and did some shopping. There was a farmers market but it was about 6 tables of the same thing: cheeses, honeys and nuts. Nothing like the farmers markets Lindsay sells at. 

We reunited with our group a little after 2 then went to a winery for a tour. The name of the winery is Parés Balta. It has been active for about 400 years. The current family who runs it is in its 3rd generation of management. The two daughter in laws went back to university to study wine and now are the winemakers, while their husbands manage the vineyard. The tour was really interesting, the vineyard uses organic and biodynamic growing practices. After the tour, we did a wine tasting which was a lot of fun. Most of our group was primarily red wine drinkers, where I primarily drink white. We did order a few bottles to ship home and I found a wine store in Cambridge that sells this label. 

After getting back to Barcelona, we decided to do some shopping before most of the stores close for Sunday. We had a really good dinner near the theater again, then went back to the hotel.